Monday, April 27, 2015

I honestly don't know what's come over me the last month. It's been nonstop project time in this house. I've gone from paint and scaffolds, to new light fixtures, and then I'm off to more moulding and huge ceiling fans and sanding and staining and sealing and cutting and nailing and tiling and grouting and heaven knows what else.

My husband puts up with soooo much crap.

While I really want to stare at my stairs (homonym again!) together, we'll get there, all in good time. But I need one more day to do touch ups. Never. Ending. Touch. Ups. Shoot.Me.Now.

So! Let's move on to part 438 of why Mandi is utterly insane.

First of all, my family room has truly become more of a room, instead of the ho hum, blah, just . . . "there" existence it so recently had. Let's just start with this real quick:

here's my fireplace. Annnd I think my daughter is watching like, Lalaloopsy or something? Random sidenote!: Have you ever seen Barbie, Life In The Dreamhouse? It is heelarious, and makes a total mock of all things Barbie. And I love Barbie. And it's a hoot. Anyways, I love my fireplace. It makes me feel so cozy in the winter. Ooh and I love my new candlesticks. Thanks for noticing those.

As with most items in this house, it's a Monet. From afar it's okay but up close it's a real mess. Can you tell?

Close up:

﻿

I swear to you I did not paint on it. Swears. Scouts honor. I say that to the Jeffro and I know he doesn't believe me. Anyway, I just knew with a little bit of high heat paint this could look sharp again. It's not a big deal, but it's simple enough to make it worth ten minutes of my time.

And it's better. Yes? Yes. Actually I might do one more careful coat. If you're a friend or neighb and you want to touch up your fireplace and need some high heat black paint, come borrow mine because I couldn't have used more than a couple teaspoons of this.

Okay! So!

I had this swell idea that changing out the tile around said fireplace would really update the space.

Take a little look-see at what we had before. Nothing really wrong here. Nothing really right, either.

Just some plain white 4x4 tiles that seemed a titch on the 90's side to me. Obvs, when I snapped this shot I was ready to do some demolition. No the subwoofer doesn't sit on the hardwood; it's tucked back there along with all those ugly wires. But I was ready to start swinging hammers.

And the 10 year old really wanted to get in on the action. Three things to say about this:

1. Smashing stuff is fun

2. Nice undies son

3. I'm now aware that he was using the pry bar right into my hardwood and there's little dings all over the place where he was working. D'oh. (frowny face emoticon, palm to the forehead.) I don't want him to know though 'cause I know he'd feel bad and I appreciated the comaraderie we shared as we smashed stuff.

So demo took about 30 minutes. I know because I was there.

This is where I fess up:

I constantly discuss what projects were totally legit and worthwhile, and which ones were hairbrained and moronic. This whole tile switcheroo business leans towards moronic, I'm afraid.

I honestly don't think it makes a big impact. I just don't. And guess what else? I figured it'd take me a couple hours tops to complete the entire thing. The actual tiling did. So I was right in that sense, except for I didn't take into account cleaning the tile, adding new moulding around the tile, the quarter round that needed adding, the second round of cleaning, the sealing, etcetera etcetera.

So I'm telling you it took me a lot of time to actually, truly complete this whole shenanigans, and plus, it cost a lot, too. I don't want to say how much because I want to be in denial. But let's just say it wasn't like,

"For $10 dollars we went from this. . . . to THIS!"

Anyways.

This is the tile I chose:

Humor me and tell me you can see why I chose it, would ya? It is smooth and travertine, and then it's also sandstone-y and rough, and it's so lovely in it's soft greige-ness and I figured it would add "texture" and I loved it--

But it just wasn't worth the headache and the price I paid.

We must do this. It's a DIY law. Here's a before of this general space:

Here's an after of the fireplace area. Sorry. Different angle. But I've got so much going on in that other direction that I'm just no ready to discuss yet.

So I like it. But I don't love it. It's just different for the sake of being different. It has no wow factor.

Well, I live and I learn. Maybe I should impose like this 48 hour moratorium on ideas or something. It might stop me from impulsive Lowe's visits. ﻿

I really believe it takes the kitchen like feel out of the living room. I love the greige of it all and think it's a big enough of an improvement I would call it a success, but then again, I don't know the cost of it all. So while I love it, I am not biased by the cost and I know how the cost can make a person love or not love a project.

I completely disagree with you! I think it has a definite impact! MUCH more modern. Definitely adds texture. Doesn't remind me of my grandma, like the previous tiles did (a real plus!). And I LOVE the wood work on the front instead of the drip-edge tiles! You. Are. A. Genius!